23
June
2008
Day 8 : Andermatt – Hotel La Claustra
6:15am: wake-up call for all rooms
7:00-7:20am: breakfast (school dining room)
7:22am: group departs for bus station
7:29am: bus departs for Chur (arrives 7:42am)
7:42am: group continues to train station
7:56am: train departs for Disentis/Muster (arrives 9:11am)
9:19am: train departs for Andermatt (arrives 10:25am)
10:25am: group continues to taxi stand (taxi prebooked)
10:30am: via taxi, group continues to La Claustra Hotel (arrive 11am)
11am: presentation of Mr. Sawiri’s project followed by hotel tour followed by refreshment (included)
1pm (intended) group depart via taxi for Andermatt (this time could change)
1:30pm group explore Andermatt (Attraction TBA)
3:20pm: group assembly at Train Station3:30pm: train departs for Disentis/Muster (arrives 4:42pm)
4:45pm: train departs for Chur (arrives 6:02pm)
6:02-6:55pm: free time in Chur
6:55pm: group assembly at bus station
7:05pm: bus departs for SSTH (arrives 7:15pm)
Lessons Learned:
1. If as a tour guide you are handed an itinerary, do not trust that it is complete and accurate. Check the information, confirm that you understand the routes and transportation, and (where applicable) confirm with the destinations that they are expecting your group.
2. Check with the person who prepared the itinerary and with the destinations to see whether they are expecting to be paid! There was a bit of a shock for me as we were wrapping up our visit to the hotel: not only had the (prebooked) taxi not been paid for, the hotel itself was expecting payment for the coffee and tea served to us when we arrived (the itinerary I was given said that refreshment was “included” – I took this to mean “paid for”, not “part of the day and subject to fees”), and to top it all off the hotel’s bill offered charges for our guided tour, the presentation, and the use of a projector and laptop in said presentation! (In fact, the hotel was expecting to submit its own charges as well as a bill for reimbursement (they paid the taxi driver for the roundtrip) directly to SSTH, and not to our group as we left – but it was still quite a surprise.)
3. As our textbook says, be ready to be flexible. I could have insisted on completing our tour as written, leading the group in a cold rain through the village of Andermatt and out to the Devil’s Bridge and back… …and they would have been wet and cold and miserable and annoyed. Instead I changed the itinerary to suit the weather and needs of the group, and everyone was happier with the result.
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15
June
2008
Saturday I slept in until 9am and then worked in my textbook, completing the chapters on itinerary building and the psychological behaviors common to groups on tour. The building was almost eerily empty because the 60 students here for service and cooking classes had all left for a daytrip, and my own classmates were either still sleeping or already gone on their own daytrips. I also spent some time in the computer room, trying to catch up on my blog and sending emails. The first was to thank Dr. Simonette for his wonderful tour, and the second was to the Kulturforum Würth museum, thanking them both for confirming that the garden is open even when the museum is closed and for having such a neat exhibit. Dr. Garely, Asha and I all took advantage of the empty building to get our laundry done, and it’s lucky we did – on Sunday the machines were running nonstop with the other group’s clothes.
In the afternoon Shevy, Asha, Gia, Adele and I decided to give our Gore-Tex a real workout. We explored the gravel and dirt trails behind the school and were amazed at the traction our shoes offered. The roads for the cars are steep around here, but the paths for the people are steeper still. There were a few points where I actually stopped in my tracks and looked at my feet, surprised that I wasn’t sliding back down the mountainside just from the force of gravity. We found a small herd of cows just above our host school and below another school for younger kids. Higher still, the gravel ran out. Then the dirt ran out. Even on the rain-flattened grass of the mountain slope, I wasn’t slipping. Pretty nifty. Eventually Gia and I started worrying about cat-and-tree syndrome – could we have climbed too high to be able to come down without falling? When we turned around and started back down, it was with very small and slow steps. Even as I started straight down, I was considering trying to traverse the mountain as if I was on skis and on a slope that was too difficult for a beginner, going back and forth and a little down with each pass instead of in a direct line. But taking little steps and going straight down didn’t lead to any slips. I tried to be braver and walk at a normal speed, but I didn’t manage to go much faster until we were back on the gravel.
Near the turn to SSTH we heard a strange noise. It sounded a little like a squeaking clarinet, but turned out to be a pair of mountainbikers holding their brakes as they rolled down the path. We all moved on to the grass and watched as they finished the decent from the gravel path to the paved road a ways below. When they reached the road they must’ve let up on the brakes because they suddenly went much faster. We were torn between continuing down the path ourselves and having dinner at Mühle, or returning to school and ordering pizza. Pizza won out for two reasons: it meant we wouldn’t have any hike back up after we ate, and it was something different than the local recipes of meat-and-sauce-and-starch that we’d been eating all week.
While we waited for dinner we all worked on our various homework assignments, and after eating we took a break to try out the pinball machines in the lounge beyond the lobby. Adele was a little freaked out by the Adams Family machine, because she hit the ball into a holding pocket and it didn’t come back right away – instead a red pannel raised up and a hand holding an eye popped out like a jack-in-the-box. I tried the Monster Mash machine, and the best was when I woke up Dracula – he had been sleeping in an upright coffin and slid out on a track to get in the way of the pinball.
After that I helped a few people edit their blogs, and called it an early night. Maybe it was the hike, maybe it was the hectic week, but I was ready for a shower and bed by 10.
For Sunday I didn’t set my alarm. When I felt like I couldn’t sleep any longer I got up and stumbled to the bathroom to brush my teeth and really wake up. When I looked at the clock I found it was only a quarter of 9, and I was pleased that I felt so fully refreshed – the evening before I’d been worried that I might sleep until noon. The computer lab was nearly empty, so I had no trouble concentrating on my own writing. As the day went on and more people came down, the conversations started getting distracting, so eventually I moved back to my own room. In the afternoon Sarah came over for help with her blog, and then there was dinner, and then I spent some time helping Katherine with hers before trying to finish catching my own up. …It’s now a quarter of nine as I type this, and I really feel tired. I like having a blog so that I can share what’s going on with everyone at home, but it’s so hard to write everything out.
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11
June
2008
Day Thirteen gave us a taste of what a motorcoach tour is like (although instead of the usual coach we were split into a school minivan and a private minivan) because we did not use public transportation once! For each stop, we had group assembly times, and traveled in the vans to and from every location on the itinerary.
We began with a group assembly at 9am, and split into the vans to travel to the Heidi House and Museum outside of Maienfeld. I have very mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand, it’s a worthy model: an attraction built for the sole purpose of attracting tourists and tourist money, which does net lots of visitors. On the other hand, it was built for the sole purpose of making money and the attraction is not any more true to the book than most movie “adaptations” are to their original source material. There is an admission fee, and the admission is good for a self-guided walk through “Heidi’s House” – an old house donated by a wealthy farmer (and far more well-to-do than what the characters of Heidi and her Grandfather “would” have lived in) set up with furniture, clothing, and figures of Heidi, her grampa, and Peter.
After Dr. Garely and Professor Blake-Neis spoke with the lady at the museum’s admission desk, she walked our class (in two groups) through the house, explaining why the rooms were designed and filled as they were, and stressing how different life was before modern technology. (Yes, no tv, no radio, no thermostats… …but also wood heat when wood had to be chopped and carried – so ovens would be built in between rooms so that more space would be warmed, and the attic was mostly for storage because in winter it was too cold to be lived in, and food had to be grown or made and stored over the long winter because it was too hard to walk all the way down to the village and back with anything to cook or eat.)
After our tour we piled into the vans and returned to SSTH for lunch. Then we traveled by van to the (five-star) Grand Hotel Quellenhof (aka the Grand Resort at Bad Ragaz – bit of a strange name for a town since there’s nothing so “bad” about the place in English). We were ushered into a lovely conference room (comfortable rolling chairs, marble table, fancy coffee machine, fresh fruit, still and sparkling water at each place, pen and paper and pad of sticky-notes at each place, projection screen, and very welcoming hosts), and treated to a presentation about the resort’s current setup, the major renovations and additions underway, and also the philosophy that guides each aspect of their services and offerings.
The Hotel Quellenhof is a five-star property with its own casino, 18-hole golf course (they’re building a second 9-hole course at the moment), and thermal water from the famous hot spring (Pfäfers) on tap and in the bottle for everyone who crosses the threshold. They have a fantastic spa complex which also features water piped in from the spring in Pfäfers (and everything is in duplicate, so locals and guests staying in the hotel each have their own areas to visit), and a medical center offering everything from plastic surgery (some people want work done, but don’t want their neighbors to see the bandages after – doing it while on vacation solves this neatly) to fitness and nutrition and wellness counseling to group and individual therapy for cases of burn-out, stress, and the like.
The hotel prides itself on its medical, spa/wellness, and business offerings. It also has a philosophy of catering to both the physical and emotional needs of its guests. So yes – the rooms will be beautifully decorated, the spa will be fantastic, the beds (which have adjustable density to cater to the soft and firm persuasions) will be comfortable… …but the hotel and its staff will be equally concerned with all the not-so-physical aspects. Do the guests feel welcome and at home? Do they have an environment to help them rest, rejuvenate, work at their best? As someone working for a (fairly) new bed and breakfast, hearing about this philosophy and how it is practiced (especially the attention to detail) was inspiring.
The process begins when the reservation is made, because the reservation desk will ask for details about why the guest is visiting and what their preferences are. Two days before arrival, the hotel calls and gives them an update on the weather so that they’ll be sure to pack everything they need, and also expresses how much their visit is anticipated. At the end of their stay, the hotel thanks them for visiting. (And when we took our leave Friday afternoon, we were each presented with a parting gift of chocolate.)
Our last stop of the day was to a local winery. The Lambert family has been growing and pressing grapes for three generations now, and in addition to making wine from their own five hectares of grapes they also process another 7 hectares’ worth of grapes from other farmers. We were given a tour of the building where they make and bottle the wine, all a story below ground – the ground level has a bathroom, a writing/office area, and a lot of storage space for the farm equipment. In the basement there’s a room with a machine that deposits the finished wine into bottles, and another machine that labels the bottles and holds them for a worker who packs them into boxes for delivery or moves them to big wire-mesh holding bins. Beyond that room is another which houses the wine press (there’s only one, but they clean it in between each kind of pressing) and giant tanks that hold the fresh-pressed wine (each tank will hold between 3 and 5 thousand liters). The next room had more giant tanks, and the room beyond that had oak barrels – the small ones hold 250 liters each, and the large ones hold 3,000 liters. The Lambert family ages most of their wines for a year in the oak before bottling, but some wine is oaked for two years (and the better stuff comes from the smaller barrels).
After our tour we were treated to a tasting of three wines accompanied by bread, (really good) local salami, and local cheese. The first was a 2007 white cuvee (a mix of different grapes). To be honest, when I swirled the glass and sniffed the aroma, all I smelled was wine. I’ve never been good at picking out notes in wine bouquets. The first sip was jarringly dry, but after a bit of the mellow white cheese I found the wine more palatable. And after a taste of the salami, the wine suddenly had a definite honey-flavor, and even seemed ever-so-slightly syrupy. By the fourth sip I was envisioning how well it would go with a feathery salad of mixed greens and dried cherries. By the fifth sip I saw our host coming back with another bottle and a few containers to empty our glasses into, so that was the end of the white wine for me. Next he poured us a 2007 Pinot Noir, and I liked it, but felt that it was a little sharp. The last wine was a Pinot Noir Select, and I will display my lack of refinement by saying I didn’t appreciate it as much as the first. It was more noticeably oaked, and I have never liked the taste of tannin.
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3
June
2008
(or, Our Trip to Mount Pilatus and Lucerne)
On June 3rd, between sunrise and sunset, our group took 2 city buses, 1 trolleybus, 4 trains, 1 cogwheel train, a group of cable cars, 1 cable gondola, and 1 steamer boat. …not in that order.
At 7:30am, we caught the autobus (10 min ride) to Chur (elevation 1,946 ft). From Chur, we took 2 trains to Lucerne (130 min ride total). The sun and clouds were fighting for control of the sky (in fact some clouds were so low they seemed interested in annexing the earth), but the scenery was still breathtaking. From the Lucerne station, we caught a city trolleybus to Linde-Pilatus station (20 min ride). Then we walked up the hill to Kriens cablecar station.
Mrs. Colette Richer (PR for Mt. Pilatus) met us there and gave us an orientation of Mount Pilatus, making sure we understood about the cable car lines, the cable gondola line, the cogwheel rail (which travels up and down an incline of 48 degrees!) and the scenic boat that travels on Lake Lucerne between Alpnachstad and Lucerne. She also told us about the hiking trails at the top of the mountain and gave us maps, full-access travel tickets, very nice souvenir hats and booklets with the legends of the mountain.
The ancient name of the mountain is Fractus Mons (Broken Mountain), and stories tell of the dragons that might breathe fire and cause trouble or rescue fallen travelers and provide healing stones. The mountain came to be known as Mount Pilatus because it is rumored that Pontius Pilate was buried at the edge of the lake. For centuries (from the 1300’s until 1585), approaching the lake was forbidden and it was believed that Pilate’s troubled spirit was the cause of fierce thunderstorms and heavy flooding. His ghost was said to appear at the lake on Good Friday, forever wishing and forever unable to wash the blood from his hands. In 1585 the parish priest of Lucerne led a group of courageous citizens to the lake, where the water was bombarded with boulders and the shallows were disturbed by waders. When no supernatural response was offered, the curse of the mountain was deemed broken and the lake was declared safe.
The cable cars take 25 minutes to run 4,496 feet up the mountain (and when we went, this put us inside and then above the lowest cloud layer!). Then a cable gondola continues the ascent to Pilatus Kulm at 7,000 feet in just five minutes. On a clear day, the views from the top must be magical. On a cloudy day, it’s easy to make jokes about taking a walk in the clouds by traveling on the hiking trails.
We descended via a famous train: at a 48% gradient, it is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world! The track is 4618 meters long, and runs mainly along the surface of the mountain but also through 5 short tunnels into the mountain’s side. By this point the afternoon sun had made a few dents in the clouds, and we rode down through the cloud layers into patchy sunlight. For the countless time that day I was struck by the sheer pastoral beauty of Switzerland. Looking out of the window was like drinking in loveliness. (Although riding through the rough-rock tunnels was strikingly reminiscent of the runaway train ride at Disneyworld – it felt like that rollercoaster headed down the track and gearing up for a crazy turn.)
At the foot of the mountain we caught the last boat to Lucerne, and enjoyed soaking up the sunlight (the top of the mountain was misty, cold, and littered with hard-packed ice while the foot of the mountain was basking in near 80 degree heat). The waters of the lake are so crystal clear that they take on the color of whatever reflects into them. Out towards the center, this means a sky-cloud blue. Along the shoreline it means a jeweltone green with just a hint of blue. Were it not for the slight variation, it might be hard to tell where the vivid green forest and grasses end and the water begins. Again I say Switzerland is beautiful, stunning, magical, breathtaking – I don’t work for a tour company (yet), I swear I’m not exaggerating.
Back in Lucerne, we retraced our steps from the early morning, taking 2 trains and the last autobus from Chur back to our school in Passugg. (Sophie, our liaison at SSTH and the person who put our 3 week stay and numerous trips on paper in logical order with detailed transport information, actually came to the train station to wait for us in case we were delayed and missed the bus – but as everything ran according to the schedule she didn’t need to drive us all back and instead wished us a pleasant evening and continued on her own way).
Dinner was a beef consume with slivered carrots and celery (the menu is very traditional at times, but no less good for that) followed by pork and mixed vegetables with a red wine gravy and flat pasta, followed by sorbet.
Dinner was followed by a few hours of collective group homework in the lobby of the hotel – we had to ask the night watchman how to turn on the lights (it turned out the switch was in a room down the hall from the lobby itself) – but the tables, chairs, and oversized ottomans provided the coziest study hall I’ve ever had the pleasure of working in.
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